There will be just one model of the Oculus Rift when the VR headset is
released to consumers next year, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe explains to
Engadget, clarifying that there will not be separate versions of the Rift
for PCs and Android. They also clarify that Android support will be "slim" to
begin with, and John Carmack describes it as a "PC-based product with Android
compatibility," and the implication seems to be that Android support will also
require a computer: "That's why we're optimizing for Android, but the Oculus
Rift will have a cable that goes down to another device which provides the
CPU/GPU computing -- whether that's a laptop, a desktop, or potentially a mobile
device, that's always been our focus for V1, that continues to be our focus for
V1." They also touch on a future vision of a standalone unit, but stress that
their main focus is to get their V1 units into consumers' hands at some point
next year. Thanks nin via
Shacknews.

Dmitri_M wrote on Nov 2, 2013, 12:53:The largest issue I have is the resolution.

If this is the largest issue of the dev build version, I am very optimistic about the future of HMDs. 1080p is more than likely the resolution for the first consumer release and I recently read that Oculus is toying around with 4k, although that would still obviously be a ways off.

Very excited for this technology, real life, what's that?

960×1080 per eye would still be half the resolution we're used to seeing, then magnified to fill your field of view. I'm kind of worried that would be a jarring step back. I believe another option they've talked about is separate screens for each eye, each at 1920×1080. I think I would hold out for that.

Dmitri_M wrote on Nov 2, 2013, 12:53:I wonder how they would adapt conventional FPS, pretty much every FPS I can think of except ArmA/OFP, where your view is essentially your aim. How would they solve this for Quake/COD/BF where you're "looking" with the mouse? Some in between solution where you can also aim with your head and the mouse? ArmA would be incredible since the player's head/view has separate controls to the player's aim/weapon.

I see this as a potential problem for any FPS games that haven't been programmed to let you aim your head and gun independently. From what I've read, the Oculus-compatible version of Half-Life 2 (that has been getting rave reviews) was modified by Valve to allow independent aiming. But I doubt many other companies will make the effort to mod their older games in that way.

Dmitri_M wrote on Nov 2, 2013, 12:53:The largest issue I have is the resolution.

If this is the largest issue of the dev build version, I am very optimistic about the future of HMDs.

Unlike my TrackIR which I don't always bother to use since it sometimes feels like a hassle to setup, if I had a Rift sitting next to my monitor I'd see no reason NOT to use it.. It was comfortable had no latency and felt almost natural. I'm pretty jaded as far as novel peripherals go. I was pretty surprised by how easily I got into using it.

I only tried a Simbin racing game but I saw no performance hit. Mostly down to it being an older title. There were some playability issues because in order to create the 3D effect the players view is offset to the left for the one eye, to the right for the other. My view was slightly to the left outside of the car I never had a chance to investigate correcting this. However you will at least be guaranteed a 3D effect with older titles using the headset. Headtracking didn't work that will likely require support from within the game.

Dmitri_M wrote on Nov 2, 2013, 12:53:The largest issue I have is the resolution.

If this is the largest issue of the dev build version, I am very optimistic about the future of HMDs. 1080p is more than likely the resolution for the first consumer release and I recently read that Oculus is toying around with 4k, although that would still obviously be a ways off.

Spent a day with the 720p dev version. Tried Hawken and a bunch of demos. There's a third party app that will force any dx9 app to split the image correctly for the device too.

Ignoring the 3D effect and looking at the Rift only from a headtracking perspective it blows TrackIR (which I've used for years) out of the water. There is absolutely no latency.

The largest issue I have is the resolution. Playing Hawken reminded me of 320x240 Doom. It was borderline unplayable. Felt like a novelty though it was very cool looking around your cockpit..just don't bother looking into the distance since it was a mass of pixels. This might be down to a calibration issue since the pixels seemed oddly elongated. Didn't get a chance to solve that.

It did disorientate me and caused slight nausua but that only set in after I took the device off. Only happened during an FPS demo where someone else was controlling the avatar's walking. Not being in control of walking yet feeling like I was "physically" walking caused disorientation.

I don't think nausua would be an issue with games where your body is in a vehicle or mech where you naturally would be stationary with something else moving you. Kicks in when you feel like you're walking and your body isn't.

I wonder how they would adapt conventional FPS, pretty much every FPS I can think of except ArmA/OFP, where your view is essentially your aim. How would they solve this for Quake/COD/BF where you're "looking" with the mouse? Some in between solution where you can also aim with your head and the mouse? ArmA would be incredible since the player's head/view has separate controls to the player's aim/weapon.

The resolution is still the largest issue. At 1080p I imagine this will mean an effective resolution of half that per eye. They need to get the resolution as high as they can.. Hell just go for 1440p.

It's not heavy and is surprisingly comfortable. Could wear it for hours.

I really want to get my hands on one of these before I'll be willing to drop a few hundred. There are a shortlist of games (FEAR, HL2, Portal) that make me nauseous....and my fear is that the Rift will compound that problem.

No other piece of hardware coming out is as potentially game-changing as this. While I'm absolutely terrified to use it for games like Amnesia, I'd buy it just to play Hawken. I'm hoping they realize two things before this comes out tho:

Games that aren't "ready" for Oculus should run in 3d, without head-tracking. Increases their usable games list to several hundred.

And computers running SLI should use each card for each eye. The scenes are near-identical, meaning render time shouldn't vary. Maybe there's a reason this can't happen, but technically it makes sense. It would require coordination with Nvidia/AMD, but with Carmack's pull it wouldn't be too difficult.